You may not be able to tell a book by its cover, but beware the
title. This poet, for all his credentials (he's published in
various prestigious "little magazines") never uses a metaphor when
a lazy simile can be found, writes five words where one would
suffice, and avoids new descriptions when old ones can be recycled
("shrewd Odysseus"!). He apostrophizes ("Soul, one's life is one's
enemy"), he personalizes ("The sky reaches down"), he lists, he
repeats, he lists, he repeats. . . like a good professor, he never
says something once. The devices apart, he is irretrievably banal:
"I am quite sure that I have read somewhere/ That the rate of
suicide among psychiatrists/ Is far higher than for any other
profession.// There are many myths to explain such things, things/
Which one reads and believes without believing/ Any one
significance for them - as in this case,// Which again reminds me
of writers, who, I have read,/ Drink and become alcoholics and die
of alcoholism/ In far greater numbers than other people." No
illumination, grace, or wit (one fine exception, "The Destruction
of Long Branch"), merely line divisions of "sentences too flat for
any poems." (Kirkus Reviews)
From "Sadness and Happiness: Poems by Robert Pinsky"
CEREMONY FOR ANY BEGINNING
"Robert Pinsky"
Against weather, and the random
Harpies--mood, circumstance, the laws
Of biography, chance, physics--
The unseasonable soul holds forth,
Eager for form as a renowned
Pedant, the emperor's man of worth,
Hereditary arbiter of manners.
Soul, one's life is one's enemy.
As the small children learn, what happens
Takes over, and what you were goes away.
They learn it in sardonic soft
Comments of the weather, when it sharpens
The hard surfaces of daylight: light
Winds, vague in direction, like blades
Lavishing their brilliant strokes
All over a wrecked house,
The nude wallpaper and the brute
Intelligence of the torn pipes.
Therefore when you marry or build
Pray to be untrue to the plain
Dominance of your own weather, how it keeps
Going even in the woods when not
A soul is there, and how it implies
Always that separate, cold
Splendidness, uncouth and unkind--
On chilly, unclouded mornings,
Torrential sunlight and moist air,
Leafage and solid bark breathing the mist.
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